Missing Trio Turns Up Safe

ELIZABETH — A frantic search for a missing 77-year-old woman who suffers from dementia and her two great-grandchildren ended Tuesday, when detectives from the Elizabeth Police Department and the Union County Prosecutor’s office found them in Newark.

Authorities put out an alert on Tuesday morning before Barbara Artis, 77, who has early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, along with her two young granddaughters – Destiny, 2, and Lana, 11 months – were located shortly after 11 a.m.

Police were investigating in the vicinity of Irvine Turner Boulevard and Spruce Street, in Newark, when they saw the three missing people at a bus stop approximately four miles away from the woman’s

New Jersey State Police said neighbors saw Artis leaving her Lexington Place residence in Elizabeth on Monday at 5:15 p.m., walking with her two great-granddaughters, 2-year-old Destiny and 11 month old Lana, but they had not returned home.

All three were undergoing medical evaluations and officials said the circumstances that led to the disappearance were unknown.

The mother of the children said she had gone grocery shopping on Monday afternoon, leaving them in Artis’ care. When she returned from the store, all three were gone.

The little girls’ mother, Kim Artis, was desperate and scared before everyone was found.